Pistachios and other nuts

This entremet was titled Baklava. It is one of the things I always wanted to try but never did. Here it comes in a lovely mousse cake form with lots of flavours balancing each other. There is a honey mousse, pistachio brulee, nut filling and honey roulade sponge - bit time consuming (you can spread the work over two days) but not too difficult.

PISTACHIO CREME BRULEE
400ml whipping cream
4 egg yolks
70g caster sugar
5g gelatine
36g pistachio paste
Put cream with pistachio paste in a pan and bring it to boil. Bloom the gelatine.  Mix egg yolks and sugar together just until they are slightly pale. Add the cream , mix well and return to boil. Let it reach 85C. Take it off the heat, add gelatine and take it straight into an ice bath. It will cool down quickly and begin to thicken. Pour it into 18cm disc 1cm high. You will have some leftover so you can make little cakes as well.  Put it into freezer.

NUT FILLING
200g granulated sugar
60g glucose
75ml water
100ml cream
20g honey
90g roasted walnuts
90g roasted hazelnuts, chopped
25g pistachios, chopped
35g roasted almonds, chopped
Put sugar, glucose and water over high heat. Stir constantly until becomes syrupy and after that leave it to caramelise to golden. Once it starts caramelising this will go very quickly. If you will miss the golden part you will end up with burnt caramel like me:) It tastes bitter but......no but! - I will do better next time.
Carefully pour cream over the hot caramel when whisking (it will steam a lot). Add honey and return to boil for 1 min. Now add all the nuts. Spread it over a 18cm disc ideally on Silpat. Freeze.

HONEY ROULADE SPONGE 60x40cm
360g honey
90g butter
240g plain flour, sifted
9g cinnamon, sifted
3g ginger, sifted
2 large eggs (1 yolk, 1 egg)
7g bicarbonate soda
125ml hot water
Heat up butter with honey just until butter is melted. Break the egg and egg yolk and put aside. In a bowl mix together boiling water and soda. Add hot honey mix and whisk. I waited until it cooled down a little and then added the eggs (the original recipe didn't say when to add the eggs)
Add dry ingredients and gently mix until combined. Spread it on a baking pan and bake in 180C for about 15 min. The sponge should be firm to the touch and a bit coloured. Over baking will make it crispy which we don't want. Cool it down and cut 2 18cm discs.

 HONEY MOUSSE
100g egg yolks
225g honey
12g gelatine
65g water
400ml whipped cream
Whisk the egg yolks in an electric mixer until they are pale and thick. Boil the honey up to 112C. Bloom the gelatine. Reduce the speed of the mixer and drizzle honey down the side of the bowl to cook the egg yolks. Now increase the speed and continue whisking until the mixture is cool to the touch. Whip the cream until it reaches soft peaks. Melt the gelatine (in a microwave or over bain-marie). When the yolks are cool fold in the gelatine. Now fold in the cream. Use immediately.

ASSEMBLY
The cake is assembled upside down. Place the 22cm ring on a Silpat or parchment paper. Into the base of the ring pipe a layer of honey mousse (about 1/2"). Place the pistachio brulee disc into the centre by pressing gently. Take a nut filling disc and two sponge disc and make a sandwich out of them. Pipe more mousse over pistachio brulee and on the top of that, press gently 'sponge sandwich' forcing the mousse up.   Even all the edges ( I didn't and piped some mousse on the top of all that as well which made it very difficult to transport the cake. Plus it doesn't look clean at all)
For the glaze I went for white chocolate mirror glaze from great baking blog http://mandysbakingjourney.blogspot.co.uk/ . 

Fraisier

 I can't let go of strawberries just yet. I've been waiting  what seems like a lifetime for them.

Last strawberry season I made my first Fraisier but it wasn't mind blowing. I decided to give it a second chance. This time I used a Laduree recipe and it turned out incredible. 

 Fraisier is the classic French cake (a staple in every patisserie) made of Genoise sponge split in two and soaked with Kirsch syrup, cream of some kind and of course fresh strawberries. Often topped with a thin layer of almond paste. 

 

It is fairly easy to make and looks amazing. 

 

ALMOND GENOISE SPONGE

50g unsalted butter, melted

200g cake flour, sifted

6 eggs

200g sugar

50g ground almonds

 Set the oven on 170C/340F. Prepare cake pan ( I used a square 18"x18" plus 2 mousse rings 6cm).

 In a large heatproof mixing bowl, whisk together eggs and sugar. Place the bowl over simmering water and continue whisking until the mixture reaches 50C/122F and triples in volume (it shouldn't take longer than 10min) Remove from the heat and continue to beat until eggs are completely cooled down.

Fold in the flour with a spatula little by little, then ground almonds and melted butter. Very gently mix together. Fill prepared cake pan (greased and floured) with batter. Bake about 30min. Allow to cool for a moment, remove from the mould and place it on a rack.

KIRSCH SYRUP
75ml water
50g sugar
40ml Kirsch
Bring the water and sugar to boil. Allow to cool and then add Kirsch.

PISTACHIO MOUSSELINE CREAM
135g unsalted butter, soft
270ml whole milk
3 egg yolks
75g caster sugar
23g cornflour
90g pistachio paste
 In a saucepan bring milk to boil. In a bowl whisk egg yolks and sugar together until slightly pale. Add the cornflour. Pour a third of the hot milk over the mixture to temper the egg yolks. Whisk together and pour the whole thing back into the saucepan. Bring to boil and keep it on the low heat continuously mixing for a while (2-3 min)
Remove from eat and when it is still hot incorporate half of the butter. Cover with cling film and allow to cool. When it reaches room temperature (18-20C/64-68F) whip it with electric mixer until smooth and add pistachio paste and remaining butter. Whip until emulsified. Transfer the cream into a piping bag (it is not necessary but very helpful when assembling the cake).

ASSEMBLY
Wash and hull the strawberries. Using a serrated knife slice the sponge horizontally in half (sometimes in 3 if it's unusually thick) to create 2 discs of cake 1cm thick.
Put the first disk back into a pan or mould, lightly soak with a syrup. Arrange a border of strawberries (sliced in half) around the inside of the mould (cut side out, against the mould). Pipe some mousseline cream. Try to push it in between strawberries, so every gap is filled.  Put more strawberries in the centre and cover with the rest of the cream. 

Now press gently second disc on the top. That should spread the cream even. Lightly soak with syrup. If you have some cream left, you can spread it on the top.

To garnish my Fraisier I ground some pistachios to very fine powder and sprinkled on the top. Enjoy!

Mango parfait with coconut sorbet

 Everything looks different in the summer. Flowers bewitch us, grass is finally vivid green and everlasting cold nights are no more. Everybody is cheerful and things are so much easier when you can bribe your children with a scoop of ice cream.
 Summer months are when the new ice cream flavour combinations see the real daylight.

This time is mango and coconut. The recipe I found on graetbritishchefs.com which is a goldmine of great ideas.

MANGO PARFAIT
6 egg yolks
100g caster sugar (bit less if you will make your own mango puree)
375ml double cream
250ml mango puree
Beat the egg yolks on high speed with 1tbsp warm water until pale and double in size. Whip the cream until soft peaks.
Warm sugar with 1tbsp of water to 121C and slowly pour down the edge of the bowl. Whisk until the mixture cools down (few minutes). Gently mix in the mango puree and then fold in whipped cream.
Place in the moulds and put in the freezer for 4h.

COCONUT SORBET
425ml sugar syrup
400ml coconut milk
half a cup desiccated coconut
Measure equal parts of sugar and water, bring to boil until sugar dissolves. That will be your sugar syrup. Add coconut milk and coconut and leave to cool. Strain and pour it into an ice cream maker. Churn. Freeze to set (few hours).

Did I mention that I love plated desserts already? Enjoy!

Rhubarb jelly with orange posset

 I wish my family could give rhubarb some credit. But I can hear only: Mummy, what's for dessert? ...Rhubarb?? Really? Blaaah...we hate rhubarb... it's sour...how can you even put rhubarb into dessert?  I think it is time to stop trying to convert them.

But what to do when you grow rhubarb in your garden and you have constant supplies? The answer is simple: Eat it yourself :)
 I am calling all rhubarb fanatics, please do try this recipe. Orange infused sweet posset goes great with a tart rhubarb jelly. I was really happy that there was nobody to share it with :)
RHUBARB JELLY
250g rhubarb
1/2 orange zest
375ml water
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp vanilla sugar
2 tbsp raspberry syrup
2,5 bronze strength gelatine leaves
Peel, trim and cut rhubarb into batons. Bloom gelatine leaves. Bring water, orange zest, sugars, syrup and all the trimming to boil. Leave it to cool, strain. Put the rhubarb batons and bring it to boil. Do not leave on the heat for too long, rhubarb overcooks very quickly. Take it of the heat and add gelatine. Pour it to the chosen containers.

POSSET
180ml fresh orange juice
3tbs orange zest
3tbsp sugar
500ml whipping cream
2 egg whites
Combine juice, orange zest and sugar until dissolved. Whip the egg whites and set aside. Whip the cream and when it starts to thicken, trickle in the juice. Fold in the egg whites. I used a piping bag to fill the glass but you may as well use the spoon.

 

If you want you can also bake some shortbread biscuits. The recipe comes from greatbritishchefs website and it is super easy to follow. You can half the ingredients and you will still have plenty leftovers for someone who is not so keen on rhubarb ;). Enjoy!